We just had a peregrine falcon in our backyard!!! Michelle saw it first and got my attention. I’d seen some kill in the grass earlier today, and the thing came back to snack; it was tugging at black feathers–maybe a crow?  And maybe that’s the predator that made it so we’ve had one black squirrel instead of two since last week. (We saw just a bit of the aftermath…)

We have a good camera on a tripod aimed at the birdfeeder, but the battery seemed to be dead; I grabbed my little point-and-shoot and tried. It’s a terrible picture, and nothing like Eric’s photos from the Peregrine group, but it’s what I could get.  Veer? Is that you?  (Probably not, but…!) I snapped again as it flew past the porch, clearly a peregrine in all its glory, but I missed.

As did, to the relief of the mourning dove and the other black squirrel racing away, the peregrine.

Written before Knit Night at Purlescence:

I wasn’t expecting any packages… Channon?

Anti-windowsmacking bird panels. A magnetic bookmarker.  A bluebird enameled pin. A–get this–tiny bobbleheaded bluejay that went straight to the top of my monitor.  I love it.  Thank you, Channon!

And today, as I knit madly away on the cotton candy, there was a loud smack against the window. Oh, ouch–I turned around to see if the bird that had hit it was hurt.  No sign of a little bird, but I found what it had been madly racing away from: there, five feet from my face, was a huge hawk staring in the window.  (If that thing had hit that window there wouldn’t *be* a window.)  I, doofus that I am, yelled to Michelle, “Come SEE!” forgetting that even if I can’t hear, other things can; it took off for a nearby tree.  Michelle came over just in time to see the redtailed hawk with about a four foot wingspan whoosh out of the tree and away.

Wow.  Michelle pronounced, “So that’s the real reason you have a bird feeder!” Thinking, I’m sure, of the golden eagle I’d once seen perched on the neighbor’s roof.

No, but, my stars, what a gorgeous bird. What an experience!  Think it’ll come back if I parade around with a decoy of an enamel bluebird? Because I’m going to.

(p.s. The shawl? That pink rinsed blob thing I tried to get all the water out of? Uh, yeah, I finished knitting at quarter past three, later walked past the room where it was blocking, did a doubletake, thinking, wait, where is it?, walked back, and of course it was right there.  It was so gossamer fine that it had simply blended in.)

Written after Knit Night:

Jade surprised me with some exquisitely soft Malabrigo merino from Sock Summit.   She knew how much I’d wanted to go so she brought some of the Summit back to share.  Again, my thanks; I am so going to have fun playing with it!

Oh, right.  The shawl. Yes, it was dry in time for showing off tonight–if I’d had to stand over it with a hairdryer it was going to be dry in time! But I didn’t have to. Not at that thickness.

Cast on 24, keeping stitches 1/2″ apart on size 6 (4mm) needles.  Two skeins Cascade baby alpaca laceweight at 400m/437 yards each.  It has the plain stitches near the neck of the Nina shawl, the yoke of the Kathy’s Clover Flowers (slightly tweaked at its last row), the body done in a variation of Carlsbad, with a bottom edging of the Water Turtles pattern.  All of those are 10+1 lace stitch patterns.  If it weren’t for the reinforced neck edge, it could qualify as a wedding ring shawl, ie, one you can pull through a (preferably large in this case) ring.  Done!

(Dear Dr. S’s wife, if he was wrong and that’s not your color, I have more yarn. Promise.)

One more story from Marley (oops) Farley Mowat:  you know how cats like to catch small creatures and bring them proudly inside to show their not-thrilled owners?

Farley had a science teacher who encouraged him to find and study a great horned owl nest, which he did.  And–this was in something like 1929, a bit of a while ago–he eventually pocketed one of the fledglings and took it home.

And then later found another one of a slightly different subspecies being tortured by some other boys; he rescued it by trading a prized possession for it.

The tortured owlet stayed a timid thing for life, but the other was “pretty sure of itself and its place in the world.” Which was, thank you very much, with him.  Mary’s little lamb had nothing on an owl disappointed that the kid disappeared and went off to school on his bike come September; he went looking for him and landed on his shoulder on a bridge, settling its five-foot wingspan down in triumph and nearly causing a car accident by a startled driver.

He was finally able to bribe his birds to stay home with bacon in the kitchen. But not before the one had extracted a child’s dream of revenge on a nasty teacher.  His descriptions of the comings and goings of those owls makes me wonder if JK Rowling picked up any ideas from him.

And there was this: those owls hated skunks. The smell made them furious.  They were on them like a mongoose on a cobra, and one time one flew through the open window just as the family was finishing dinner and it settled down next to Farley with its prey.  Mind if I join you?

The skunk wasn’t quite dead yet.

Now aren’t you glad your cat likes mice instead?

(Photo taken the second time it came to drink.)

I sent a note off to a friend, and I’m adding in a few phrases here to give more context:

I just went outside and one little finch on the patio did not fly away from me. I got up quite close to it; something seemed wrong, and looking at its eye, it clearly was blind on one side. The eye near me was swollen and dead.

I stayed there, kneeling next to it, wishing it well, and finally softly said something to see if it could hear me, since it hadn’t responded to the sliding door opening. It swiveled its head around, looked at me with its good eye a moment, and then flitted off to the safety of the tree.

Which answered my question as to whether it could see where it was going. I’m glad it at least has that. It was a little breathtaking having it so close for so long, but I went afterward and told Richard what I’d seen, needing the comfort in the face of the little thing’s suffering.

And Diana, on the receiving end of that email, with the wisdom of having been both participant and observer in such things, reminded me that it is harder to witness suffering than to live it.  When it is ours, we deal with it and adjust, enjoying what we can do and getting through what we can’t.

The little finch flew back to me awhile after our exchange.  I had set out a shallow pan of water; it perched on the edge and drank.  Somehow, that completely lifted my day. I had been able to provide what it needed and, in this dry climate, could not easily find on its own. And it let me know I had indeed made a difference to it.

To answer the question–yes, the surgeon encouraged me to go ahead to Sock Summit if I wanted to first: go live your life! The answer was I would dearly love to, but with Richard shaking his head reminding me of the reality of what the Crohn’s is doing right now, there was no way.

Thus I got a phone call this morning from the hospital. Wednesday the 5th it is. (Ed. to add: you know you’re a knitter when you interpret that as one Knit Night away.)

————-

I’d be curious to know if other city dwellers have noticed these patterns.

I finally figured out what was missing when I finally saw one doing it. I don’t know if it’s an urban squirrel thing, ie behaviors stemming from the lack of predators, or a young squirrel thing.  But based on what I’ve seen, it’s definitely the former.

I knew it was important to train our local population from the moment they discovered our birdfeeder, and, playing the wild woman at them, I did–none of the squirrels tries to climb to or leap on it anymore, and if they see me coming, even from inside, they don’t amble away from the birdseed on the ground, they flat-out RUN. Especially ever since the day one fell off the awning onto the concrete in its mad scramble.  Ouch.  (It recovered quickly.)  I guess word got out.

The thing that has changed is this: I’ve always thought squirrels were cute. And part of why I thought they were cute was the way they eat: picking up the bit of food and then sitting up alert, nibbling away with it held to their mouths while their tails are curled tightly up against them shaped like an effort at a treble clef.  Constantly looking around, constantly being alert to their environment. Tuned in. Twitching the end of their tails at the slightest sign of danger to warn others, first just a bit while it’s curled up against them, then, as the sense of danger intensifies, in bigger twitches with their tails spread out like a flag in the wind behind them just before they break out into a run for the trees.

Our squirrels didn’t do that.  No sitting up. No curled tails at all.  No twitching. They just moseyed along, noses to the ground, tails listless and flat, chewing as they went, and that was that. Never sitting up at the table using proper manners. Never holding the food up to their mouths in their paws.  Never warning other squirrels, whether from the trees or on the ground or anywhere ever.

Now that ours have learned to be afraid of me, they’ve started to take note of their surroundings, to sit up a bit, to even curl their tails. (And it looks like a bad comb-over on one that has a particularly thin tail.) Only sometimes and usually only halfway up, but they’re getting the idea. One actually twitched his–it was so strikingly unusual, and shouldn’t have been, that it grabbed my attention immediately.

Sitting up and eating with paws to mouth rather than skulking like a rat–now you’re getting there! Warning others of dangers rather than only thinking about yourself.  Acting more like a member of a community.

I feel like I’ve sent my squirrels to finishing school or something.

This isn’t blocked yet, and the jellyfish will look more like themselves once it is. It is quite a bit longer than it seems here, with the seaweed section providing a more-solid and thereby warmer area for wrapping around the neck in the brisk Monterey Bay breezes.  This is the Monterey shawl lace patterns morphed into a scarf, knitted out of a skein of Camelspin, one of my favorite yarns; it’s softer than quite a few cashmeres and a good one for wearing against the neck.

And just for fun, a good demonstration of why my husband insists that if I indeed get a woodpecker feeder, I’m to keep it as far as I can from the house.  Someone was having problems with their telephone service.  One of the hubby’s co-workers showed him this:

A misremembered start of a fairy tale that was passed around the DarpaNet back when Richard was in grad school:

Ladle Rat Rotten Hut vent two sea irk groin-murder inner fore rest… (no, that’s not spam, say it fast.)

It took it awhile to find the new restaurant, and when it did, it was cute–Michelle and I both wondered at first if it were a large mouse. My! What big ears you have!  With its small size, those ears, and slim build, it had us for a moment.

Till we saw the tail.  Great. A Californian rat, thin and trim, ready to see and be seen, out in the open, nibbling at the offerings from the birds above.

I was none too pleased. If only we had a cat.  A little aversion therapy.

When I was in San Jose talking to the garage-top falconatics a few weeks ago, one told me she’d ditched her birdfeeder after finding she was supporting not only the local rat population but its next generation right there in her yard.

Last week, I got a flier from the Wild Bird Center saying they had just stocked up on seed catchers, and I’m definitely going to go buy me one, but meantime,  I remembered what my daughter Sam had said about rats avoiding the smell of mint plants.

And I do have me some mint plants.

So I cut a sprig from the front yard, hoping it too would sprout roots in water and take off into a new plant, but if not, let it stand sentry till I can get more going, from seed or bought, I don’t care, and I put it in a plastic container on the patio.  I turned a comfortable chair to face outwards to watch and knitted.

It wasn’t long, just a few minutes later, that the rat I’d scared off came out again.

And stopped. Its nose sniffled furiously.

It left.

It came back a few minutes later, stopped and sniffed again, took a few steps to the side to see if that would help, turned back to face the mint–it was still there.  Rats.  It ran away again.

Then over the next little bit I watched it try to take a wide berth around it to the right to get back to its intended dinner so infuriatingly close.   No go–till the squirrels, who didn’t pay it nor their little cousin no never-mind, had a fight and knocked the mint clear thataway.  Yay! And the rat made a break for it.

For about a second till I reached the door, anyway.

On the next round, it took a wide berth around to the left this time, putting it out in the open air away from even so much as the protective covering of the awning overhead, the kind of exposure a rat hates.  But the only way it could figure out how to get to those easy pickings.  Smart little thing. In broad daylight, too!

So I upped the ante.  I wasn’t going to use glass containers; I’m too much of a klutz and I’d seen how much momentum quarreling squirrels could produce. No shattering allowed. I took a plastic container from Costco that had held Alphonso mangoes, ie it looked like a giant clear egg carton, and cut it into two-section segments.  I filled them with water and cut another sprig for each segment. I set all my containers on the patio fanned out in a wide circle encompassing the reach of the fallen birdseed, four times the intensity of the mint that had stopped the thing in its tracks before.

It has not come back. The birds don’t care about that little bit of leafy green down there, the squirrels ignore it, but that rat gave up unfed.

I have some mint seeds.  I have pots.  I have plants to top off as needed in the meantime.

One mint-woodcutter, to the rescue.

(July 24–one caveat. Since I wrote this, I found a site selling mint plants warning that they must be kept in pots: saying that the first year, you’ll wonder what all the fuss is about. The second year you’ll start to find out. They can send underground runners as far as 20 feet past weedblocker, whatever weedblocker is, and will take over everything. I knew they were fairly invasive but that’s more than I knew, so I thought I’d better put that in here for anybody coming googling by.)

I noticed this morning that the birdfeeder, which had been a bit low last night, was down to the bottom portholes; time to refill.  Got my measuring cup for scooping, filled it and put it down on the picnic bench, moved a chair under the feeder, and got up to untwist the feeder top.  Picked up the cup, poured the seed/minced peanut mixture in…

…And before I could finish twisting the thing back together, there was a tiny finch perched on the twig right next to my face: canIcanIhuhhuhisbreakfastreadyyet?

Chirp thing, friend.

Later, I went back to Purlescence with the smallest scrap of Manos, pulling it out of my pocket saying, “You know that yarn Kevin wound up for me yesterday? It’s” (sniffing ever so woefully) “all *gonnnne*…”

They cracked up. Okay, show us!  I did. I’d decided the scarf was long enough as it was.

But Kathy of yesterday’s comment had come too and she still insisted on handing me the three beautiful Manos balls she was coming to my rescue with.  I promised her I would put them to good use–I have some serious lace-scarf knitting to do.

The camera battery died, the post office was closing, so this photo will have to do for here.  I can’t go to Sock Summit, much though I wish I could, but my shawl will–if you go, say hi to Karin at the Periwinkle (my fingers want to type it as Peregrine) Sheep for me.  This is her soft sock yarn, knitted in the golden-eagle-wing-inspired Constance pattern,with the colorway coming together in a way that reminds me of Clara and her brood.

Speaking of which.  There is another nest right here in my own town, and as I was coming out of my doctor’s office this morning, what should I see but a gorgeous peregrine falcon soaring directly above me, coming closer in than I’d ever seen any before, not in the dim light of dusk but with the bright sunlight glowing off its feathers.  It was absolutely breathtaking.

And nobody else seemed to look up to notice it at all.  What they missed!

I was outside yesterday watering the fruit trees. I suddenly realized that in the quiet of the evening, I was listening to birdsongs, and wondered what species I was hearing.

And thought thank you oh thank you, Sonic Innovations, from this previously-untreatable-110dB loss-at-8Khz user. It had been the $6400 question (literally), and they are so worth every penny.

Mourning doves walk so delicately with their tails brushing the ground like a bridal train and the slightest curve to their beaks in perfect counterpoint to the roundness of their heads; they are graceful birds.  This surprised me. I’ve always known what a mourning dove was; I’d never really spent time observing them before.

I write this as one perches close just outside my window, patiently observing *me,* looking me steadily in the eye every time I glance up.

I’m beginning to be able to tell some finch individuals apart on that feeder. The one that amuses me most is the red male that sticks his whole head in the opening and tosses it madly side to side, sending down pinata showers–licorice, eww, hershey’s kisses, nah, till he finds the one variety seed he likes best.  Sweets to the cheep.

A new-to-this-yard interloper of a squirrel with a particularly bushy tail that had never met a predator in its protected little life is clearly remembering its first: after she got incensed that his insolent teenage reaction to her opening the door was, Yeah? So what, lady? without even bracing itself, she became a screaming “GET OFF THAT!” wild woman running at it flailing her arms.  Followed by his five-foot flying leap to the ground, heart pounding, after not getting any seed anyway.

It’s never tried to jump on the feeder since, and if it sees me coming near will even stay away from the stuff on the ground, looking at me, hesitating, pleading tremblingly at me, Don’t DO that.

(I was afraid it would learn the one way to beat the anti-squirrel system and I wasn’t about to give it a chance to.)

But.  I would rather have it hoovering the concrete below that male finch than stealing my apples. Come to think of it, I’ve only found one chewed apple so far this season–on my fence, the top half gone, so you know what put it there. (Mentally calculating birdseed cost vs. the dollar value of homegrown apples.  Oh.  Well, it’s just apples and orange birds…)

Forget it, chickadee: you can’t peck a hole in the bottom by hanging upside down and going at it from down there. And if you could you’d be in for quite the surprise.

I found a place that sells dwarf mango trees with full descriptions of habit, color, fruit fibrousness or lack thereof, shape, and flavor, shipped in three gallon pots and that could grow here if it doesn’t freeze.  The site says put Christmas lights on it if the temps threaten.  Hey!

Richard’s immediate reaction was to not want to be the neighbor that never seems to take the Christmas lights down all winter.

To be continued.

A side note–welcome home, Don! And a huge thank you to Robin, an old friend who surprised me today when my mail came with a box from my Bethesda hometown: with lanolin-based soap and four handknit dishcloths.  Wow.  Cool.  My kitchen just got greener–no more paper towels wiping the counters off.  Thank you, Robin!

I stepped outside this morning to water my tomato plants and, coming back across the porch, suddenly caught movement next to me. I peered carefully around the birdfeeder just as the chickadee peered around from the other side to make sure the coast was clear–and there we were, eye to eye, standing still, about a foot away from each other.  Wow.  And then it zipped away.

As Michelle put it, “Now you have pets! And you don’t even have to clean up after them!”

Meantime, after dinner last night, I drove back down to San Jose and met up with the garage band; there was a goodly crowd and introductions were made all around and names put to emails.  I gave Eric first choice of Margo Lynn’s fingerless gloves, and he allowed as how they would be just the thing, that his hands do indeed get cold during some of his wildlife photo shoots. Noro for him, Margo Lynn, and in the pair he picked out for Craig, who wasn’t there but usually is–I didn’t know if I’d be able to get back down there, and Eric offered to pass them along for me. He told me to mail Glenn’s to Santa Cruz, that Glenn was caring for the lone survivor of the San Francisco nest and it had a broken clavicle.  It seemed to be healing nicely, but it did tend to tie Glenn down there.

Eric showed me one of his photos of two falcons midair, one with prey, the other facing the camera and squawking. I looked at it and laughed, “Aak! Don’t look at me! I’m having a bad feather day!”

A few minutes later (maybe I missed hearing something the first time? Certainly not a rare thing to have happen) Eric showed me another large picture.  There’s a more cropped version of it here. He said the hummingbird was actually defending its nest Clara had gotten a bit too close to.

I loved both Clara’s calmness and the spunk of the little thing, not to mention the photography. Then when I tried to give the picture back, Eric said, “No–this one’s for you.”

My jaw hit the ground.  Gobsmacked.  It was signed and dated, too, on the front, with a description on the back of just which falcon where when–it’s a collector’s item. As a matter of fact, there was a fundraising auction that had just ended that had included a copy of that photo, which with all my recent medical bills I couldn’t afford to consider but had quietly wanted to.

And here this was in my hands.  As a gift.  Wow.  I must say I instantly pictured the biblical King Soloman ripping the photo in half and mailing half to Margo Lynn to be perfectly fair–she’d knitted his gloves, not me.

Saying that I knit those five lace scarves sounds like a rationalization, but I’m really going to enjoy that photo. (Margo Lynn, forgive me?)

A quick note first: I got a call from Don today from the emergency room; he’d broken three bones in his foot.  Ouch!  I’m wishing healing his way.

After I posted yesterday, a new bird showed up. Bonus points to anybody who whistles the song the post title comes from (sorry about the earworming).  I was stunned–in 22 years in California, I have never once seen a chickadee. Anywhere.  Ever.  I assumed they simply didn’t live here.

But there one was, right there on my feeder, testifying to the fact that in life if you want something to happen, sometimes you have to create the opportunities by which it can.

Speaking of which.  Last night my husband was still at work due to deadlines and international time zone issues, while Michelle, who’d planned to take his car, was off having dinner with friends.  Marian and I were about to head out to San Jose City Hall for her to get to see the falcons and meet the folks I’d be giving Margo Lynn’s fingerless gloves to when it suddenly dawned on us that, oh, wait.  What’s wrong with this picture.

And we cracked up at the same moment.  No car!  (Duh…)

While I was typing this, a female ladderback woodpecker looking like this one showed up on my olive tree. It wasn’t interested in the feeder; I guess it simply felt welcomed by the presence of the seven finches and titmice on the feeder.  It was gorgeous and big and I hadn’t seen one of those since we’d had to cut down the ash trees.  Wow.  All I had to do was welcome its neighbors and it felt right at home too.  I wonder what will show up next!

Before Marian’s flight this afternoon, we did get down to San Jose after all, but there were no falcons soaring in sight at that time of day.  We toured the textile museum–and if you can, GO! The Jack’s Falling Water Quilt is worth the trip all by itself.  For anybody who’s ever been to Watkins Glen in upstate New York, picture a rocky waterfall like that one transfigured into a watercolored quilt with cascades of blue dropletted silk falling around the picture, dappled leaves above the falls, the movement of the water in the pool below and a deep green strip that you almost don’t see at first but then notice as it gives depth and life and summer to the water .

I so wish I could create something like that.  And this Friday admission is free. Go!

Meantime, Don, get better! Your homebirds are waiting for you.

A pair of house finches discovered my birdfeeder last week. And now, at last, the birdword is out.  It’s a grand party, with five often on the feeder at a time and one on the branch impatiently waiting its turn.  Squirrels have been on the ground (they seem to have realized that trying to land on the feeder directly is a kamikaze experience) busily playing mop-up crew, taking turns with the jays and the occasional graceful mourning dove that walks in delicate steps among the spilled seeds.

News flash (an hour after typing the above):  I just got my mail, and there was a surprise package.

Marian and I had already decided that for her last evening here tonight, we had to take her to go see the peregrines flying around City Hall in San Jose.

It turns out my friend Margo Lynn had listened to my wishing out loud that I had something other than lace scarves to hand out to the group of falcon watchers–maybe something to keep their hands warm in the cool brisk evening air, something the men too could enjoy.  I was thinking for Eric, who takes and shares so many of his photos, (there are some new ones up) and Craig, who writes up beautiful reports and lately has even showed up at 4:30 am to observe the falcons’ dawn risings.  For Glenn, the biologist at UCSC who has been caring for these birds for thirty years and has played an integral part in bringing them back from near-extinction.

Margo Lynn knitted four pairs of fingerless gloves for me to go share.  (Those three will know better than I who most deserves the fourth pair.)  It was a total surprise. They’re gorgeous. Three pairs are Noro Kureyon or Kureyo Patora, one is a Berocco superfine merino: they’ll all be nice and warm, without getting in the way of one’s fingers nor one’s dexterity while holding a camera. Perfect.

I dearly hope they will be as gobsmacked as I am.  Wow.  Thank you, Margo Lynn!

…And I need me a good bird book.

A little more water on those tomatoes.

That plum tree is going to be so hosed, no doubt about it.

And I still need a goofy picture of Marian. Shouldn’t be hard.

(Note added an hour later to draft: write it and it shall happen…)

(Falcon photos owned by SCPBRG.  I love the kids-home-from-college-together shot.)

Karin’s yarn: I love how the darker/lighter patterns match the fledgling’s. In adulthood, the stripes effect on the juveniles will change from going up and down to side to side with the chest going white.

You know you’ve really been caught up in this whole peregrine thing when you pull up behind a car at a red light and read the nameplate on its back as saying it’s a Toyota Tiercel.  Well, and it was little, too, and the males are smaller!